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lunarexorcist's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
i thought this was a new adult book until like twenty pages in my bad. i was so let down jade was 17 and not... like... 22.
i cried at the last forty pages but then went "what. what? what???" until the end. unhinged. i cant decide if it was unhinged in a genius or stupid way, but i will say thatbeing horny for a ghost that is horny for you also in a toxic yuri way and also a "wow you are so repressed colonialism slash misogyny slash queerphobia is a hell of a thing huh" is one of the more unique interpretations of "this house eats people" ive seen.
i think the fact everyone sucks so bad throws people off but that just made my chest ache with how real it felt. that was my dad. thats my eldest daughter trauma. im gonna lose it.
i cried at the last forty pages but then went "what. what? what???" until the end. unhinged. i cant decide if it was unhinged in a genius or stupid way, but i will say that
i think the fact everyone sucks so bad throws people off but that just made my chest ache with how real it felt. that was my dad. thats my eldest daughter trauma. im gonna lose it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Colonisation, Xenophobia, Body horror, Racism, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Gaslighting, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Murder, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Abandonment, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Misogyny, Car accident, Suicide, and Grief
plumdustsuns's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I had typed an entire review but my phone died SMHHH
Anyway. So:
- turned up being a page turner for me
- evocatively beautiful writing and language even with horrific content
- horror wasn’t too distasteful or so which is good for a coward like me
Plot wise:
- by the 200/250 page mark, the plot/incidents began to feel a bit repetitive. Jade goes to sleep, bad dreams, Jade wakes up, fights with dad. I remember I was sHOOK when her dad was digging out the skulls. I wish we had more of that/his hauntings and her seeing him do insane shit instead of just fixing the house and being a stubborn asshat
- lily’s sleepwalking and everything being utilized more would have been cool as well. Using them to go somewhere clue wise and story wise and her being a bit more conflicted about the haunting as she too was being seeped into would have made the stakes feel a lot higher
- I like Jade and Florence but I wish their adventures added more to the story/tightened the plot. Cam being jealous of Florence? Where’s more of that? Why only at the last moment? That would have been so fun and interesting. And seeing Cam’s queerness too in the flashbacks like come onnnn please would have added more to the bad marriage. Maybe her parents discovered her queerness and married her off which is why they don’t talk to her anymore. It could have paralleled Jade’s own fears about coming out and fleshed out their connection, made it more believable and even something to root for in ways
Yeah. There was a lot of interesting content but they all meandered a lot and/or weren’t used to their full potential. Alma being there by the end was blah, we already had a colonizer presence with Marion. Halle didn’t feel too much of a great addition either as we never quite see her or have her back in again.
I wish ‘what did she show you’ to Ba came way before and he showed Jade and we got more of his motivations and it added to his complexities and just the immigrant symbolisms the book was going for. He had so much potential than being just the ‘we’re never leaving’ bad guy and would have brought a lot of cultural weight and justified Jade’s empathy and forgiveness almost of his actions even more. ‘He never spoke about his family before’ WHAT IF HE DID NOW. I like that this was all triggered by his loss of his mother/homeland. We could have went into it more. Him and Jade and Lily could have all had shared psychosis/dreams from the insane food. Sigh. So much lost potential. And if the mom did come in earlier and hadn’t been allowed to leave for a bit? And the escape felt more necessary as pressing as it was all very ‘yeah alright she’s gonna burn down the house now’ without it feeling very consequential to me.
I thought this was a solid almost 3 star read but the more I wrote this review and realized how much more could have been done, the madder I got and realized this was a 2 star read for me at best. But I did enjoy it in ways still.
Anyway. So:
- turned up being a page turner for me
- evocatively beautiful writing and language even with horrific content
- horror wasn’t too distasteful or so which is good for a coward like me
Plot wise:
- by the 200/250 page mark, the plot/incidents began to feel a bit repetitive. Jade goes to sleep, bad dreams, Jade wakes up, fights with dad. I remember I was sHOOK when her dad was digging out the skulls. I wish we had more of that/his hauntings and her seeing him do insane shit instead of just fixing the house and being a stubborn asshat
- lily’s sleepwalking and everything being utilized more would have been cool as well. Using them to go somewhere clue wise and story wise and her being a bit more conflicted about the haunting as she too was being seeped into would have made the stakes feel a lot higher
- I like Jade and Florence but I wish their adventures added more to the story/tightened the plot. Cam being jealous of Florence? Where’s more of that? Why only at the last moment? That would have been so fun and interesting. And seeing Cam’s queerness too in the flashbacks like come onnnn please would have added more to the bad marriage. Maybe her parents discovered her queerness and married her off which is why they don’t talk to her anymore. It could have paralleled Jade’s own fears about coming out and fleshed out their connection, made it more believable and even something to root for in ways
Yeah. There was a lot of interesting content but they all meandered a lot and/or weren’t used to their full potential. Alma being there by the end was blah, we already had a colonizer presence with Marion. Halle didn’t feel too much of a great addition either as we never quite see her or have her back in again.
I wish ‘what did she show you’ to Ba came way before and he showed Jade and we got more of his motivations and it added to his complexities and just the immigrant symbolisms the book was going for. He had so much potential than being just the ‘we’re never leaving’ bad guy and would have brought a lot of cultural weight and justified Jade’s empathy and forgiveness almost of his actions even more. ‘He never spoke about his family before’ WHAT IF HE DID NOW. I like that this was all triggered by his loss of his mother/homeland. We could have went into it more. Him and Jade and Lily could have all had shared psychosis/dreams from the insane food. Sigh. So much lost potential. And if the mom did come in earlier and hadn’t been allowed to leave for a bit? And the escape felt more necessary as pressing as it was all very ‘yeah alright she’s gonna burn down the house now’ without it feeling very consequential to me.
I thought this was a solid almost 3 star read but the more I wrote this review and realized how much more could have been done, the madder I got and realized this was a 2 star read for me at best. But I did enjoy it in ways still.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Body horror, Gore, Gaslighting, Murder, Emotional abuse, Grief, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Confinement, Racism, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, and Slavery
clovetra's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
ok i had to pause to collect my thoughts on this.
i hate to say i did not have a good time.
look it feels illegal to give this a 1-star because;
a) the cover is too beautiful to rate it that low
b) i did enjoy the first 30% of this book!
it feels wrong to rate a book lower when i considered dnf’ing many times yet pushed through because i wanted to know how it ended & if it got any better. the fact i had that much interest is worth 2-stars to me. plus i really wanted to like this. REALLY wanted to like this. alas as u can see by my stars um…. i did not!
it was really hard to formulate my thoughts about this book simply because most of the time i had no fuckjng idea what was going on. like if you asked me for a summary i would probably skip a good 60% of the plot because i actually don’t know what was happening. i still don’t really know what happened by the end. like yeah i got what happened to ba but….. with cam & marion? lily? jade even? um. 😀
like even the chapter titles such as “heart”…. i assume it was the house? i cant even be sure.
i wouldn’t be surprised if it was a meta-commentary like “if you don’t understand this book it’s immersing you into being jade in this house” but…. cmon when i don’t even know what i don’t know i am not a happy camper.
that was honestly my main issue. i think if i knew what was going on i would’ve given this at the bare minimum an extra star. but like im gonna have to read other reviews to know what’s going on.
another gripe, which is a lot more minor mind you, is that this didn’t feel like a horror. it’s more like a thriller. but like nothing was really horrifying to me. bro i need more than just some bugs. the more horrific elements may have been lost on me because i had no idea what was going on!!!!!
my final gripe is that this was such a slow burn oh my god????? storygraph said this was medium-paced…… WHERE. i’m sorry this is not medium-burn this is a snail’s-pace-burn. not even saying that’s a bad thing! it’s just not my thing and if i knew it was a slow burn i wouldn’t have even read it!
idk man im really sad cuz i wanted to love this! otherwise i wouldn’t have pushed past like 30%!!!!!!!
i am hoping that trang thanh tran irons out these “kinks” in her newest book because it looks good. granted i did say that about this book and look where that got me but. IM HOLDING OUT FOR YOU TRANG THANH TRAN!!!!!!!!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Death, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Death of parent, War, Classism, Car accident, Xenophobia, and Death
Minor: Homophobia, Slavery, and Biphobia
raynbowkitty's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book made me feel physically ill several times. Tough, but intriguing story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Slavery, War, Body horror, Xenophobia, and Racism
Moderate: Vomit, Mental illness, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, and Colonisation
Minor: Alcoholism and Death of parent
khakipantsofsex's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Body horror, Racism, Colonisation, and Mental illness
Moderate: Suicide, Slavery, Homophobia, and Fire/Fire injury
sammy_nor's review against another edition
3.25
i liked the book, but i also found the writing confusing at times. i hadn’t a clue what was going on half the time
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, and Gore
Moderate: Car accident, Slavery, and Colonisation
Minor: Homophobia
modernmatilda's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Things I love
-female character who aren't perfect and who's flaws and mistakes are a struggle
-books with covers featuring girls faces with flowers growing out of their mouths
-explorations on topic like what parents owe their children, what older siblings do to project their younger siblings and is it good, first vs second generation kids, cultural identify, belong/not belonging
This book was a wild ride with cottageGORE vibes that I treasure. But more than that, it was this gorgeous exploration of families, parents, multigeneration trauma, colonization, and ghosts. I don't think I understood everything, but I loved everything.
The dream/not dream scenes were wonderful because I did not know which parts were real and which ones weren't. The sleep paralysis creeped me the F out. The bug scenes were fantastically gorey but I think I needed more explanation.
I feel like this would make a fantastic book discussion choice and I'm so thankful to my local bookstore employee for recommending it.
-female character who aren't perfect and who's flaws and mistakes are a struggle
-books with covers featuring girls faces with flowers growing out of their mouths
-explorations on topic like what parents owe their children, what older siblings do to project their younger siblings and is it good, first vs second generation kids, cultural identify, belong/not belonging
This book was a wild ride with cottageGORE vibes that I treasure. But more than that, it was this gorgeous exploration of families, parents, multigeneration trauma, colonization, and ghosts. I don't think I understood everything, but I loved everything.
The dream/not dream scenes were wonderful because I did not know which parts were real and which ones weren't. The sleep paralysis creeped me the F out. The bug scenes were fantastically gorey but I think I needed more explanation.
I feel like this would make a fantastic book discussion choice and I'm so thankful to my local bookstore employee for recommending it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation
Moderate: Violence, Murder, Car accident, Gore, Body horror, Racism, Racial slurs, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
Minor: Slavery
sarah984's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This is a pretty solid YA haunted house story. There are some really effective scares in here and I loved the Vietnamese setting, but sometimes feelings and character motivations got a bit lost in the flowery writing and the romance didn't really work for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide
Moderate: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Abandonment, Body horror, Grief, Car accident, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Cursing, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Slavery, War, Blood, Confinement, and Animal death
Bugsmotaki's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
A nice concept ruined by an absolutely stilted rythm, not many things were happening plotwise and most of them were so confusing I almost DNF.
I really liked the parts focused on how white colonialism is the worst and the world is still full of racist POS, would have loved more mother/daughter quality time.
And I get that Jade is an angry teen but she wronged and hurt everyone that loved her, it wasn't the best choice as a narrator IMO.
I really liked the parts focused on how white colonialism is the worst and the world is still full of racist POS, would have loved more mother/daughter quality time.
And I get that Jade is an angry teen but she wronged and hurt everyone that loved her, it wasn't the best choice as a narrator IMO.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Biphobia, Body horror, and Abandonment
Moderate: Suicide, Eating disorder, Murder, Racial slurs, Classism, Car accident, Racism, Slavery, and Xenophobia
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